The Hollies - Rarities (1988)

Then celebrating their 25th anniversary, The Hollies had a surprising time in late 1988 when thanks to a TV ad, "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother" became a number one hit 19 years after it was first released. With it came a double CD "All The Hits and More" and this excellent compilation of rare tracks, mostly unreleased material, with one side (or half on CD) being devoted to the Terry Sylvester era and the remainder the Graham Nash era.

It was the pair of "Relax" and "Tomorrow When It Comes" that were the real revelations as we had a couple of glimpses from the aborted album that was set to follow up "Butterfly" which judging from these two songs was gonna move further into psychedelia... "Relax" was a great lazy short number with daft leslie organ effects on Nash's voice in one channel and a great overall dreamy vibe. "Tomorrow When It Comes" by contrast is an explosive freakbeat/psych rock track that I absolutely love. Sadly, for a variety of reasons, they were left in the can as the band fell into disarray wondering which direction to go in next... Nash was coming up with many new songs which the band rejected to his anger, flirted with MOR, gigged in cabaret then decided to do the Dylan album... no wonder Nash left.